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Envoy Says U.S. Watching Hong Kong Closely

Posted on: Sunday, 16 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

HONG KONG - A top U.S. official told Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa on Sunday that Washington will be watching to see how the territory's political system develops now that Beijing has ruled out full democracy in the near term.

Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said it was too soon to determine whether China had harmed Hong Kong's promised autonomy when it ruled out direct elections for the territory's next leader in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008.

"That's a judgment we're going to need to take a lot more time to conclude or see whether it's hurt or enhanced it or damaged it," Kelly told journalists from The Associated Press and two local newspapers. "It's raised questions."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has said Washington was "disappointed" by Beijing's decision, while U.S. Consul General James Keith attacked the "erosion of the high degree of autonomy" that China promised when Britain handed back Hong Kong in July 1997.

Kelly, who is Washington's lead official on Asia affairs, seemed to have taken a softer approach, though he reiterated that Washington would like to see democracy in Hong Kong and will be following the situation closely. Kelly said he met with Tung for 35 minutes.

Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, sets out full democracy as an eventual goal but gives no timetable.

People in Hong Kong had been hoping they could directly elect Tung's successor in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008, but Beijing recently ruled out that possibility, saying universal suffrage could stir up economic and social instability.

Critics charged that China had violated its pledge to grant Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for at least 50 years.

Kelly said Sunday that Washington has confidence in Hong Kong at a time when people in many parts of Asia are choosing their leaders through elections.

Beijing recently escalated the controversy here by telling Hong Kong's Legislative Council early in May that it was not allowed to criticize the decision on democracy handed down in April by China's most powerful legislative panel, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Opposition lawmakers say their free speech rights have been subverted.

The highly unpopular Tung was chosen by an 800-member committee that tends to side with Beijing, and he has recently proposed that Hong Kong could get a more representative government by expanding the committee. Tung's foes say that would not amount to real reform.

Hong Kong residents will be allowed to directly elect 30 of 60 lawmakers in September, and the Hong Kong and Chinese governments are worried about ending up with a legislature that won't back Tung. The other 30 seats will be chosen by special interest groups, such as business executives, bankers and doctors, who tend to side with Beijing.

Tung and Beijing were alarmed last July 1, when popular sentiment exploded into a protest by 500,000 people who marched against an anti-subversion bill that was widely viewed as a threat to the territory's Western-style freedoms. Tung withdrew the measure.

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